HÉROLD, LOUIS JOSEPH FERDINAND (1791-1833), French musician, the son of François Joseph Hérold, an accomplished pianist, was born in Paris, on the 28th of January 1791. It was not till after his father's death that Hérold in 1806 entered the Paris conservatoire, where he studied under Catal and Méhul. In 1812 he gained the grand prix de Rome with the cantata _La Duchesse de la Vallière_, and started for Italy, where he remained till 1815 and composed a symphony, a cantata and several pieces of chamber music. During his stay in Italy also Hérold for the first time ventured on the stage with the opera _La Gioventù di Enrico V._, first performed at Naples in 1815 with moderate success. During a short stay in Vienna he was much in the society of Salieri. Returning to Paris he was invited by Boieldieu to collaborate with him on an opera called _Charles de France_, performed in 1816, and soon followed by Hérold's first French opera, _Les Rosières_ (1817), which was received very favourably. Hérold produced numerous dramatic works for the next fifteen years in rapid succession. Only the names of some of the more important need here be mentioned:--_La Clochette_ (1817), _L'Auteur mort et vivant_ (1820), _Marie_ (1826), and the ballets _La Fille mal gardée_ (1828) and _La Belle au bois dormant_ (1829). Hérold also wrote a vast quantity of pianoforte music, in spite of his time being much occupied by his duties as accompanist at the Italian opera in Paris. In 1831 he produced the romantic opera _Zampa_, and in the following year _Le Pré aux clercs_ (first performance December 15, 1832), in which French _esprit_ and French chivalry find their most perfect embodiment. These two operas secured immortality for the name of the composer, who died on the 18th of January 1833, of the lung disease from which he had suffered for many years, and the effects of which he had accelerated by incessant work. Hérold's incomplete opera _Ludovic_ was afterwards printed by J. F. F. Halévy.
HERON (Fr. _héron_; Ital. _aghirone_, _airone_; Lat. _ardea_; Gr. [Greek: erôdios]: A.-S. _hragra_; Icelandic, _hegre_; Swed. _häger_; Dan. _heire_; Ger. _Heiger_, _Reiher_, _Heergans_; Dutch, _reiger_), a long-necked, long-winged and long-legged bird, the typical representative of the group _Ardeidae_. It is difficult or even impossible to estimate with any accuracy the number of species of _Ardeidae_ which exist. Professor Hermann Schlegel in 1863 enumerated 61, besides 5 of what he terms "conspecies," as contained in the collection at Leyden (_Mus. des Pays-Bas_, Ardeae, 64 pp.),--on the other hand, G. R. Gray in 1871 (_Handlist_, &c. iii. 26-34) admitted above 90, while Dr Anton Reichenow (_Journ. für Ornithologie_, 1877, pp. 232-275) recognizes 67 as known, besides 15 "subspecies" and 3 varieties, arranging them in 3 genera, _Nycticorax_, _Botaurus_ and _Ardea_, with 17 sub-genera. But it is difficult to separate the family, with any satisfactory result, into genera, if structural characters have to be found for these groups, for in many cases they run almost insensibly into each other--though in common language it is easy to speak of herons, egrets, bitterns, night-herons and boatbills. With the exception of the last, Professor Schlegel retains all in the genus _Ardea_, dividing it into _eight_ sections, the names of which may perhaps be Englished--great herons, small herons, egrets, semi-egrets, rail-like herons, little bitterns, bitterns and night-herons.